I] INTRODUCTORY 5 



from Heraclea, Nicesius of Maronea, and Pythion 

 of Rhodes. 



9 Amongst the others, whose place of birth is 

 unknown to me, are Androtion, Aeschrion, Aris- 

 tomenes, Athenagoras, Crates, Dadis, Dionysios, 

 ■ uphiton, Euphorion, Eubulus, Lysimachus, Mna- 

 seas, Menestratus, Plentiphanes, Persis,Theophilus. 

 All the above-mentioned wrote in prose. Some have 

 treated the same subject in verse, as for example 

 Hesiod of Ascra, and Menecrates of Ephesus. 



o More famous than all these writers is Mago the 

 Carthaginian, who, writing in Punic, embodied 

 in twenty-eight books matter that was previously 

 scattered here and there in different monographs. 

 Of these twenty-eight books, Cassius Dionysius of 

 Utica made a Greek translation in twenty books 

 which he dedicated to Sextilius the praetor, and in 

 these twenty volumes he introduced much matter 

 taken from the Greek writings of those whom I 

 have mentioned above, shortening at the same time 

 Mago's work by eight books. Of these twenty 

 books a useful abridgement to six books was made 

 by Diogenes in Bithynia, and presented by him to 

 iving Deiotarus. I mean to be briefer still than he, 

 eating the same subject in three books — the first 

 jh agriculture proper, the second on cattle, and the 

 third on the fattening of farmyard stock, for I shall 

 eliminate from this treatise such matters as I think 

 do not come within the province of farming. And 

 >o I shall begin by showing what ought to be elimin- 

 ated, and then proceed with the subject, following 



